


Kaleidoscope

by AlphaFlyer



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Afterlife, Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Character Death, F/M, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, The Tesseract (Marvel)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:20:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26274766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlphaFlyer/pseuds/AlphaFlyer
Summary: Across the dimensions, across the realms, across time they will meet, these so-called not-lovers. Drawn to one another in life forever but never together, to be united only in death. Loki looks at one of the shards of light dancing in the dark, smiles, and snaps his fingers.Sometimes it really is fun to be a God.
Relationships: Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov
Comments: 26
Kudos: 66
Collections: be_compromised AU Exchange 2020





	Kaleidoscope

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bettybackintheday](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bettybackintheday/gifts).



> Written for the be_compromised AU exchange. Bettybackintheday asked for a whole bunch of things – all in the alternative I assume but I thought hey, why not have it all? So here we are: Arranged marriage, medieval, royalty, rock’n’roll, afterlife, with an undercurrent of soul mates: the complete AU bingo! <3
> 
> Because this is fanfic, I’ve ascribed some slightly new powers to the tesseract. And finally, BE WARNED: the tags don’t lie! But all sadness is temporary. 
> 
> Thanks to ALeaseInWonderland (Alistra) for her patience with my whining, and services above and beyond in making this a better story.

__

_The God of Mischief hasn’t felt this shitty in a very long time. His near-immortal body is battered and bruised; his hair a limp and lanky mess; and his beautiful outfit is spattered with plaster from where that green abomination had…_

_No. No, no, no. No. He will not think about that … Thing._

_Loki looks around the astral plane where the impromptu teleportation has dropped him. The sudden appearance of the tesseract had been a gift, but there’d been no time to plan his escape and he has had absolutely no control over his point of emergence. Somewhere in Thanos’ realm? The rocks look vaguely familiar; any time now, The Other may come and hiss something at him about failure._

_The only thing Loki knows for sure is that it’s the Avengers’ fault._

_Everything is the Avengers’ fault._

_Revenge must be had – and it will be oh so sweet: carefully planned, executed and, above all, epic. And, ideally, not traceable to him, or his idiot brother will complain to Odin, and then Mother will be disappointed, and then... He shakes his head against these unwelcome thoughts, sending bits of rubble flying._

_No matter. It has to be done._

_But where to start? The Green Beast? Loki shudders, and rubs his sore shoulder. Something easier for starters, perhaps?_

_Oh yes: The red-headed woman and her boyfriend, his erstwhile General - hadn’t they knocked him off that Chitauri sled in the end and practically handed him to that Hulk thing? Surely that deserves a response. Plus, they are the most human of the lot, the least equipped to resist, and as such will provide excellent practice ground for the glory to come._

_Now to the how, and the what. Hit them where it hurts the most - Barton himself had taught him that. Think, Loki, think…_

_His own voice echoes in his head: 'Is this love, Agent Romanoff?' And her response: ‘Love is for Children. I owe him a debt.’_

_She is almost as good at lying as Loki himself, but this? Having been inside Barton’s head for a good week by that time and seen what he had so desperately tried to conceal, he had instantly seen her (and his) dissembling for what it was. The thought is delicious: Two souls, two would-be lovers, in acute denial of their destiny._

_He can work with that. Wanting what you cannot have happens to be something with which Loki Laufeyson, erstwhile Son of Odin, adopted Brother of Thor, is deeply familiar._

_Loki sits down on a sharp-edged rock and contemplates the Infinity Stone in his hand: opener of portals, portent of possibilities – not least the new one he suspects he just carved for himself, when he had picked it up off the floor and escaped whatever Fate the spinning Norns (or Thor, more precisely) had had in mind for him. He spins the crystal cube, watches as the starlight throws rainbows across the rocks._

_The beginning of a plan hatches, the perfect punishment for those who had dared defy him:_

_Across the dimensions, across the realms, across time they will meet, these so-called not-lovers. Drawn to one another in life forever but never together, to be united only in death. He looks at one of the shards of light dancing in the dark, smiles, and snaps his fingers._

_Sometimes it really is fun to be a God._

I.

He watches her from his forge, gliding through the throng like a swan across choppy waters. His hand unconsciously feels for the hilt of the dagger he keeps by his side. 

_From the Land of the Rus, she is,_ the whispers say. _The Lady Natasha._

Clinton doesn’t know where that is, _the Land of the Rus_. Somewhere in the East? He has rarely been more than a week’s ride from the City, and that only because the Master had fallen ill and he’d had to deliver the cartload full of newly forged swords to Lord Stark’s demesne on his behalf.

 _The Land of the Rus._ It sounds exotic, and so is she, based on what his sharp eyes detect at this distance: elfin fair skin, hair the colour of the King’s Guard’s pennant peeking out from under a lace kerchief. Her attendant, a tall, thin woman with dark hair, is dressed in all black in the manner of the recently widowed; her stern looks part the crowds as they go. 

She has come to be wed to Duke Alexander the Pierced, they say, sent by her guardian, Count Ivan of Kyiv. When she’d arrived, the train carrying her dowry had as many carts as the fingers on a man’s hand. The Duke is a lucky man; his bride rather less so, if the stories of Alexander’s peculiar appetites are true.

What, Clinton wonders, did Ivan get in return for this sale? The ways of the powerful are mysterious, and the closest he will ever come to their games of thrones will be the making of weapons to mark their failures.

The Lady’s eyes sweep over the throng, alighting on the forge, and for a moment Clinton feels like disappearing into the tent. But he holds his ground and puts the blade to the stone, the flying sparks providing the grace of things he knows and can control. He prefers the art of bow making - working with the living wood that draws its strength from the Earth, and sending its messengers into the sky. But the money is in swords, his Master insists, and so Clinton works the forge and the whetstone, his reputation sharpening with each blade he hones. 

The Swordmaster has been a good teacher of technique, but you can be both that and a short-sighted fool; the man refuses to see how warfare is changing, and how much more efficient it is to kill from a distance. Perhaps Lord Stark would appreciate Clinton’s skills with the bows when his apprenticeship is served; he seems the forward-looking kind, if the unusual armour he wore on a recent visit is anything to judge by.

But the blade demands Clinton's attention here in the now. He pays it its due, adding a drop of oil to make its path smoother, his long fingers bending the metal to the stone. It is a surprise after all, then, when the two women come to a halt in front of his stall.

Two ladies at a forge, one a future consort to Royalty no less; the sensation of this is not lost on those present. Behind them a small crowd of onlookers is already forming, to see how a journeyman sword smith will fare in such company.

It takes all Clinton’s willpower not to let the blade slide off the stone and ruin its edge. He does so slowly, letting the stone spin empty as he wipes his hands on his tunic and makes a bow that he hopes is graceful enough for the occasion.

“M’lady,” he mumbles, because he doesn’t know what else to say, and waits for her to speak in turn. Where is the Master when he is needed? No doubt gambling away their day’s earnings at the joust, as is his wont, but it is moments like this when his ability to speak to the High Folk would be useful.

The Lady Natasha’s eyes are clear and green, like the lake in the mountains. He finally meets them with his own, and for a moment he feels a spark of recognition. Not like one does when one meets an acquaintance, after a year on the road, but of something older – a kindred spirit, perhaps? He dismisses the thought as quickly as it comes; they are not the same kind.

“I hear you hone the finest edges in the Duchy,” she says without introduction, almost as if she were speaking to an equal. Her accent gives her a lilt, and her voice is like the smoke of the forge. Clinton could listen to it forever.

“My Master does,” he says dutifully, because a Journeyman cannot lay claim to his Master’s craft, even if the labour were his. “But he is not here. Shall I fetch him for you?”

The two women exchange a glance. 

“If we wanted your Master, we would have called for him and had him brought to the castle,” the attendant says brusquely. “Our informants tell us that the true maker of the finest weapons is you, and have been for some time. Your Master wastes his days wenching and carousing, living off your work, they say.”

Clinton does not know how to respond, but hearing the truth from the mouth of this woman provides him with more pleasure than he has felt in some time. And to know that others think it… that is worth something.

“Mistress Maria is correct,” the Lady Natasha says. Her mien is serious, but the corner of her mouth twitches a little; without any doubt, she has seen the pride that straightened his back at her companion’s remark. “I wish to make a purchase, but not in front of the rabble. May we enter the tent?”

By the laws of propriety a lady and a journeyman swordsmith should not enter an enclosed space together, but the Mistress Maria’s presence will put that to rest; she appears to be the most formidable of chaperones. Clinton turns without hesitation and holds open the flap of the tent, bowing as they pass him and enter.

“My apologies,” he says as he closes it behind them, to the disappointed murmurs of the crowd outside. “There are no seats or refreshments suitable for…”

The Lady Natasha waves him off. 

“I did not come here for a meal, or a conversation,” she says, “and I am well accustomed to standing. I have need of a dagger.”

 _A dagger._ For what purpose might a beautiful lady, about to be wed, possibly require a dagger? 

“Is it a gift for your husband-to-be?” he asks. “Or a diversion for yourself? A jewelled hilt, suitable for someone of your station, would take some time to craft.”

Her voice drops to a whisper.

“You do not know me,” she says, and there is a hint of steel in her words. “I care not for jewels, or trinkets. I require naught but a blade that cuts true and sharp, small enough that it can be concealed in a woman’s dress.”

Clinton’s eyes have grown accustomed quickly to the dim light inside the tent. He sees the sudden hardening of her jaw, the stillness with which Mistress Maria holds her body, and suddenly he understands. A wedding present for Duke Alexander it may be, but of an entirely different kind than the man might expect. A fitting one, too, the way he has bled the country dry.

“I am afraid Master Duquesne has no daggers for sale, M’lady,” he says, and the regret in his voice is genuine. “He considers them toys, not weapons, and hence insufficiently profitable.”

She looks at him with a challenge in her eye.

“And you, Journeyman?” she says. “What would _you_ consider a weapon suitable for use in a chamber, rather than on the field? Lady Stark, with whom I spent a night on the way, mentioned that you have your own thoughts on the strategies of warfare. She says Lord Stark was most taken with your insights. I ask again: Have you not thought of this particular battlefield?”

‘ _This particular battlefield._ ’The bedchamber, she means. Into which women are bought and sold across the continent, without a voice of their own, to bring riches and power to men without merit or vision. 

_Men like Duke Alexander, who rules his fiefdom like a venomous snake._

Clinton’s hand strays to his hip. 

“I have,” he answers truthfully. “But the only such weapon that I have crafted, I made for myself.”

He draws the dagger from its sheath under his tunic and presents it to her, hilt first, to deny danger and to ward off bad luck. Still, Maria takes a step forward as if to defend her charge, but Natasha stands her ground, her eyes focused on Clinton’s calloused hand and the simple, gleaming piece of steel with the leather-wound hilt it is offering.

“It is not a thing of beauty, but the blade is straight and true. It has a point that will pierce both leather and cloth, and a thickness and an edge that will not brook the resistance of mail, flesh or bone. It is yours, should you wish to have it.” 

She reaches for the dagger and although he has proffered the hilt, her fingers touch his for the briefest of moments as she takes it. He wonders if she feels it, that sudden jolt passing between them. By the way her hand halts in mid-air it is clear that she does. Their eyes lock, and once again Clinton has that odd sense of recognition, of kinship.

But then Mistress Maria clears her throat, and the Lady Natasha withdraws her hand and her glance. Her tongue briefly wets her lips as she inclines her head in thanks, though. The moment passes when Maria brushes past her to hand Clinton a pouch that is heavy with coin.

“This is for you,” she says, “not for your Master. Half is for your weapon, the other for your silence.” 

Lady Natasha hesitates for a moment before leaving the tent and gives him one more lingering, questioning look. She opens her mouth as if wanting to say something more, but her chaperone draws her out with an urgent reminder of her station and the need to return to the castle before they are missed. 

Clinton, for his part, takes his time before returning to working the forge. When he does, it is to fold the steel for a new dagger blade, a companion to the one he has let go.

The fair ends on the day of the wedding feast, but before the period of mourning of Duke Alexander’s untimely passing begins. The exertions of the wedding night had been too much for his heart, it is whispered; his inconsolable young widow had insisted on cleansing his body herself, even before she had donned the black veil.

The battle lines for succession are already being drawn, given that Duke Alexander had left no male issue; even Count Ivan has staked a claim, through his daughter. So has the Duke’s widow in her own right, but the wagers in the pits are that her ambitions will not last the year. Women rarely succeed when men play their games of power; Clinton knows that although no bards will ever sing of her single act of defiance, her head will likely roll before this is done.

He can only hope that his own role in the matter will likewise remain unsung.

He hangs the purse the Matron Maria had given him from the saddle of his new horse, the remaining silver tinkling as he rides, and leaves the encampment before all the tents and cooking pits are struck. The Swordsman had cursed, but in the end the stock of blades Clinton had already forged and honed for him had been consolation for his loss; a portion of the purse’s contents had served to end their association lawfully and on good terms. 

Clinton wonders if the Lady Natasha had spared him a single thought after she had left the tent, or if she had any idea that her sea-green eyes will follow him to the end of his days. In the meantime, Lord and Lady Stark, Clinton hopes, will gladly welcome a new armorer to their keep, and a Master of the Bow - for who knows what wars the Black Widow’s reign will bring.

_*****_

_The Dark Ages in Midgard had been unpleasant enough when Loki had seen them firsthand: nobody washed, the food was full of parasites, and the only places where you could find a book were monasteries, filled with frustrated younger sons. Watching that unfold all over again at length is out of the question._

_He yawns, bored, unable to bring himself to stay and see how this particular story ends. It doesn’t really matter, he surmises. Succession wars tend to be bloody, with women usually cleared out of the way through beheading, or another marriage of convenience; this one won’t be any different. Even Asgard is full of stories like this._

_Also, honestly? He would have liked to see a bit more pining, thwarting and suffering on the part of his targets; they were barely acquainted in this universe, as it turned out, and terribly fatalistic at that. Better luck next time?_

_He takes a deep draught from the mead he has conjured up, spins the tesseract backwards and forward a bit on the tip of his finger, taps it to stop and looks inside. A series of images resolve themselves. Oh yes, that will do…_

_Loki snaps his fingers._

II

It’s not easy being a Romanov, Natasha finds, now that the Bolsheviks have decided to wipe them all off the face of the Earth. Rumours of the execution of the Tsar and his entire family reached Paris last week, momentarily displacing stories of the Spanish influenza and the German offensive at Château-Thierry from the front pages. People whisper, stare or tut-tut in pity in her presence. Even though she has neither immediate claim nor intention upon the throne, she has had her governess look into the possibility of changing that cursed name – preferably in a way that does not involve marriage.

Because marriage would require a man and men these days essentially are of two kinds: those wanting to harvest her head in the name of the Revolution, and those falling all over themselves to offer safe haven - assuming she’ll bring the family diamonds and a handful of Fabergé eggs. And all of them expect her to spend her waking hours draped over a fainting couch, as if women hadn’t already proven through this war that they were more than able to thrive in the absence of men, as if she herself had not proven time and again that she was a survivor. 

It really is all very tiresome and so Natasha seeks the freedom of a ride in the Bois de Vincennes on most days, including today.

It is easy to imagine, this close to the front, that you can hear the artillery fire, although the sound is just as likely the thrumming of her horse’s hooves and the cracking of branches on the forest floor. But as she enters oe deeply into the woods the sound changes – subtly at first, then more clearly, resolving into the sounds of a military encampment, likely on the other side of the forest: the shouting and laughter of men momentarily outside the line of fire; the whinnying of canon horses; the clanging of pots and canteens. 

Friend or foe? There have been no news of further German advances, or Maria would not have let her ride; thanks to her companion’s friendship (as she insists it is, despite all evidence to the contrary) with the American Military Attaché, they have enjoyed privileged access to the latest intelligence.

Natasha pulls the rein and slows her mount to a trot. The voices shout back and forth in an unexpected language: English. Weren’t the British supposed to be still mired in the Somme?

It dawns on her then - these are the newcomers: Americans, freshly bloodied at Belleau Woods, likely pulled back to Vincennes to regroup. Funny that Maria hadn’t mentioned the fact they were here, but no matter; Natasha has no interest in meeting any of them. If there is a thing worse than a single man it is a thousand of them, all no doubt be thrilled to see a red-headed “Mamselle”. She can do without the whistles.

But things turn even more inconvenient. Just as she turns the horse back in the direction of the stables a man suddenly emerges from the woods. Wild-eyed and dishevelled he is, a near-caricature of that Serbian fanatic whose shot on the streets of Sarajevo had caused the lights to dim all over Europe.

“In the name of the Revolution, die, you Romanov whore!” he shrieks in Russian and fumblingly points a pistol straight at her. 

Perhaps she should have varied her daily ride, she chides herself briefly, and become less predictable - but this is not the time for reflection.

Natasha gallops straight towards the man to frustrate his target and reaches into her skirt for her small but serviceable pistol, whose mother-of-pearl embellishments belie its utility as a weapon. But before she can as much as take aim, the man’s head erupts in a bloom of blood and brains, followed by the minutely delayed sound of a pistol from the far side of the clearing.

Her horse shies, both from the sound and the sudden pull on its reins, but Natasha keeps a firm grip on him with one hand, still brandishing her pistol in the other. She quickly ascertains that her assailant appears to have been alone, and that he is indeed _hors de combat._ The lethal bullet, she notes with clinical detachment, entered his brain cleanly through his left eye; somehow she knows, even before turning in the saddle to locate the shooter, that this was no accident, but rather expert marksmanship.

The rider is coming towards her now, from much farther away than could be expected given the neatness of the shot; a smoking pistol dangles almost casually from his left hand. He rides with the ease of one born to horse on the Western plains. Cavalry? It is hard to fathom, given the weapons with which this war has been waged in the mud of the Ypres Salient, the Somme and elsewhere, that there are still soldiers on horses - and yet here he is.

“You okay?” the man asks in American-accented English.

“I am, thanks to you, I assume,” she replies, grateful for Maria’s teaching of the language. “I owe you my most sincere gratitude.”

The soldier pulls his horse up beside hers, holsters his gun with an unnecessary but impressive flourish, and tips his hand to his hat. 

“At your service, Ma’am,” he drawls. He is tanned, athletic, and conventionally attractive - except for a pair of arresting, battle-hardened eyes, in which seem to gather all the colours of the sea and the storm. 

_Eyes she has surely looked into before._

For a moment the jolt of unexpected recognition nearly unseats her, but it cannot be – apart from Captain Rogers, she has never met an American soldier that she can recall. 

She recovers quickly.

“Will you tell me your name, so I can thank the man to whom I owe my life?” she says, slipping her own weapon back into its discreet hiding place.

“Barton, Clint. Staff Sergeant, First U.S. Cavalry,” he says. He gives a meaningful look towards the fold in her skirt where her little pistol has disappeared. “Looks like you could have handled this on your own, though. Nice little piece you got there.”

It’s funny, Natasha reflects briefly, that her unexpected saviour is not only quite possibly the most efficient killer she has ever encountered, but also the first man she has met who appears to have no doubt that she herself could have done the same.

“How did you know that he wasn’t in the right, wanting to shoot me?” she says. “I could have been a German spy, and he a French patriot.”

Sergeant Barton gives a lopsided grin that tweaks something deep in her inside. Maria would doubtless chide her for how easily she has fallen, despite all those avowals of eternal spinsterhood.

“ _Patriot?”_ he says. “That guy was hollering in Russian, or something. It sure wasn’t French. And the last thing we need right now is another Slavic fanatic killing a noble dame… I mean, _lady_. Had too much of that already in this goddamn war. So, I made the call. Tell me I was wrong?”

She smiles, shakes her head and stretches out her hand for him to take.

“Natasha Romanov, Grand Duchess of Russia. This man sought to finish what the Bolsheviks did to the Tsar, on the basis of my name alone. And no, you do not need to get off your horse to take a bow. I owe you a debt, Sergeant Barton.”

The touch of his fingers on hers is electric. For reasons she cannot fathom she wants to take his hand, hold it and never let go. But a bugle calls from the encampment beyond the woods just then, and his eyes leave hers to look back in the direction of the sound.

“Guess we’re moving out sooner than I thought,” he says, his voice tinged with the same regret that she feels. “But, good thing I went for that little ride, I guess.”

“Do you know where you will be heading to?” she asks.

He shrugs.

“Marne Valley, I s'pose. Lots of Jerrys there they say, trying to make a last stand.” For a second he hesitates, as if gathering his courage. “Maybe I can look you up, when this is over?”

Countess Maria may not like her Royal charge planning an assignation with a non-commissioned officer, but there are special circumstances at play that even she could not deny. 

“I would like that very much, Sergeant Barton,” Natasha says, her eyes lighting with a smile that has not reached them in years. “I have no cards with me, but Captain Rogers, at the American Embassy, will be able to tell you where to find me, through my Lady-in-Waiting.”

He blinks a little at that, but recovers quickly and nods to indicate that the information has been received in the spirit in which it was offered: not to impress, but to help him find her. He nods and smiles, until, something occurs to him just as he starts turning his horse around.

“What about…” he nudges his chin towards the remains of her would-be assassin, “… _that_?”

It’s Natasha’s turn to shrug.

“There’s a war on, isn’t there? I doubt another body in the woods is going to raise any questions, or cause major concern.”

He flashes her an appreciative grin and gives a clipped salute. Clicking a command to the horse, he rides off to join his unit at a sharp gallop. She watches until the trees close around him and he disappears from sight.

Of course, he doesn’t come back. But each year on the anniversary of this day, the Grand Duchess Natasha Romanov will leave a single rose on one of the thousands of white crosses at Aisne-Marne, and wonders what life might have brought had Clint Barton returned from the War. 

*****

_Now that’s more like it._

_Loki purrs with delight: Just enough civilization to cause destruction and mayhem on a grand scale, and ample opportunity for personal loss, no matter how random the actual death. Modern wars in Midgard are quite efficient that way, it seems, far better than all that medieval bloodletting and pestilence._ _He spins the tesseract again, wondering whether there would be any good opportunities for soul meddling in a universe that includes the next big war._

_His eyes alight on the image of Steve Rogers, emaciated and small at first, then inflated and buffed up, into the Übermensch who had knocked him around in Stuttgart. Oh, do tell! For a moment, Loki considers abandoning his current targets. The tears of another thwarted love will taste as sweet…_

_But Rogers manages to screw this one up all on his own, forgetting that he could have jumped out of that plane rather than go down with it. No sense of self-preservation, this one. Loki shakes his head; what fun is there in destroying the self-destructive?_

_Still, seeing Rogers in this world is sufficiently distracting that Loki randomly spins the crystal cube again, past VE-Day and into…_

_New York._

_Yes, that will do, there is poetry and justice in tossing Barton and Romanoff into the city where they had caused him so much grief, even more so since the fashion and hairstyles in this time period are particularly hideous. Serves them right._

_Loki shudders a little, a delicious mixture of revulsion and delight, and snaps his fingers._

III

“You don’t strike me as a guitar man.”

The voice is so smoky you could light a match off it. 

Clint looks up, expecting some middle-aged lounge singer with make-up an inch thick; instead, his eyes alight on the single most gorgeous chick he’s ever seen. She can’t be a day over twenty, with no right to a voice that seems made of fire and ash and a thousand years of watching humanity at its worst. He doesn’t bother to ask how she’d gotten into his hidey hole; home is a mattress in the stock room of a five-and-dime whose owner owes him a favour.

“It’s got strings, I pluck ’em,” he says. “And I always hit my notes. What do I strike you as?”

She cocks her head a little, props her right foot up on his other chair, her elbow on her knee and her chin in her hand. It doesn’t look like a pose as much as an observation stance, with a touch of opportunistic ballet stretch. 

“Military,” she says. The ‘r’ is rolling a bit oddly out of her mouth, now that he thinks about it. “Your eyes, and the way you startled when I spoke. Good thing you don't have a gun handy, I suppose.”

Guess those two tours in ‘Nam still show. Fuck. 

“The one does not exclude the other. You never met a soldier who could play the guitar?” he says, trying and failing to keep the sharpness out of his voice. “Hendrix served. So’d Johnny Cash. And…”

She holds up her hand in surrender. 

“Yes, yes, I know about Elvis. Point made. They tell me you’re good.” 

She casts a meaningful look around the dingy surroundings, as if to assess the odds that this might be a place where you’d find a decent musician.

“I am.” He’s not bragging, it’s just true. “Why d’you ask?”

“I have a gig at the Village Gate this weekend. Opening act, not feature, but still. Set of four songs. My partner got his draft notice yesterday and took off for Canada, so you see my problem – I’ve been told you might be the solution.”

Clint doesn’t pretend not to be interested; it’s been a slow spring and no one really wants to hire a vet. More to the point, the Village Gate is where Dylan had written ‘Hard Rain’ in the early sixties; people still go there in the hope of seeing the Next Best Thing. He does the mental math: the weekend would give them four days for rehearsals; three, if her idea of 'weekend' includes Friday.

“Who sent you?” he asks, because provenance matters.

“Fury,” she says, and his interest scales up a notch. Good guy, Fury. They’d hit it off when Clint had played a short stint with Sam and the Falcons in the spring; Sam was one of Fury’s stable of musicians, but a bit too jazzy for Clint’s style of playing. He and Wilson parted brothers, and Fury had sent him the occasional job ever since. 

If Fury was interested in this woman she was not only legit, but should be considered her an up-and-comer, possibly with long-term prospects. Something Clint Barton could really, really use to hitch his wagon to at this stage; people seem to have forgotten about him in the two years he’s been gone, and apart from his corner on Washington Square, he hasn’t had any gigs that lasted more than a couple of weeks. 

“What kind of music we’re talking about here?”

She takes her foot off the chair and says, “Blues. Folk. Rock. Folk-Rock. Some country, but only if it smells of blues. Still trying to find my own thing. I mostly do covers at this point, but I’ve also written a few pieces. Play a few licks?” 

She nods meaningfully towards the guitar case that’s leaning against a shelf filled with Campbell Soup cans.

Audition? Fuck that. He is _Clint Fucking Barton_ after all – or he was, until the draft took him out of contention. Maybe he should have gone to Canada, too? Cohen had liked him, and Lightfoot had expressed interest in a second guitar. The Guess Who had regular turnover...

_Audition my ass._

But Fury had sent her, he can use the dough, and so Clint makes the call and swallows his ego. But…

“I absolutely refuse to do _Honey_ ,” he says, because there are principles to be observed even in a time of compromise.

He reaches for the case, takes out his piece and, as usual, it takes about a minute before he forgets everything. He starts out with a couple of Hendrix tunes, because, and then throws in a few bars from the Fulsome Prison Blues, just to see if she’ll recognize the tune. She does, and starts tapping her fingers on the back of the chair.

“Can you do Joplin?”

He glowers a puh-leeze in her direction and goes straight for the gold standard, _Bobby McGee_. She picks it up on the right bar right off the bat, and that smoky voice turns to something else altogether – not pretending to be Joplin, not stealing her cadences, but mourning the singer's loss as the song does that of her lover. 

The voice is uniquely her own though, and again Clint wonders how one so young might know with such deep conviction that _Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose…_

He does the entire song, sometimes chasing her vocals, sometimes anticipating them, but always right where she needs him to be and it is abso- _fucking_ -lutely glorious.

She lets her voice run out with his last chord, and there’s loud whooping from the door that leads into the shop. Somewhere in there, his landlord and a couple of customers have turned up and are now making their enthusiasm known with excited claps and stomping feet.

Clint allows the spell of the music to break; he looks up at the singer and finds her staring back at him, ignoring their impromptu audience. She nods and breaks into the tiniest of smiles, one that makes the side of her mouth curl up just a little and sends a sudden stab straight into his gut.

“You’ll do,” she says, and extends her hand with an unexpectedly shy smile. “I’m Natasha. Natasha Romanov.”

He takes the offered hand. 

“Clint Barton, but you knew that already. You may need to work on that name, though,” he adds. “Russians aren’t all that popular these days.”

She shrugs, but doesn’t pull her fingers away. Instead, she squeezes harder.

“Neither are soldiers, I understand. We’ll deal. Are we on?” 

It seems that they are.

As it turns out, their opening act that weekend is the kind of thing the patrons of the Village Gate have been waiting for and not seen for a while, and the owner expands their set on the fly by two whole encores. The last piece she does is one they hadn’t rehearsed, but Clint knows it as something his mother used to sing and so he’s good with it, even though he wonders how it’ll go down in a place used to things a bit more raw and raucous. 

_She Moved Through the Fair,_ the piece is called, and as is usual for these Irish ballads everybody dies. It’s a haunting piece, pure folk - better suited to a harp than a guitar, but he makes it work. Her voice weaves a magic spell that seeps into his fingers and a stray beam from the shitty lighting system catches her hair, creating a fiery halo that takes his breath away. When the last few crystal notes drop into the room the silence is absolute; he doesn’t hear the applause when it comes.

There is no doubt afterwards that they belong together. _Delta,_ Natasha suggests they should call themselves, and Clint is happy to go along. Fury books them on a bunch of festivals to solidify and expand their repertoire, find their sound, and all that jazz. It all works a charm, and somewhere in there Clint starts to think it’s almost like he’s known this woman all his life. He allows himself to believe that she feels the same way, and plans to tell her so soon.

When their plane hits a wind shear en route to their first headliner gig in Baltimore, he reaches for her hand; she takes it without hesitation, holding it tight right through the steep descent. His last thought is one of regret that they had waited so long.

****

_He spins the crystal cube again. The universe shown in its projections now has a kaleidoscopic quality, as if different futures, different strands of destiny are being born and discarded every few turns._ _This must be one of those worlds in which the Infinity Stones, rather than lying dormant as they have for millennia, play active havoc with time, space and reality…and yes, minds and souls._

_For a moment Loki is inclined to leave this one be – after all, it had been one such random splice in the continuum that had allowed him to escape from New York and his brother’s clutches. Disturbing the future might lead to a past he might not appreciate._

_Never mind. The temptation is far too great._

_He stares into the tesseract for a moment, trying to fix on one of those countless emerging possibilities but failing to grasp a single one. Suddenly, though, everything darkens and dims, and becomes impenetrable to his keen eye. What in the Nine Realms…_

_No. It cannot be._

_But it is, it must: Loki Laufeyson, Prince … no,_ Rightful King _of Asgard, is not in this world. Correction: Not anymore. One moment it had been open to his eyes, then - not. He cannot see that of which he has no part. Has he just escaped one fate only to find an end elsewhere?_

 _Well, he may not be in the worlds inside the crystal cube, but he is still very much in this one, and there is only one answer to be made to this_ _unacceptable affront._

 _He conjures up a wooden knattleikr stick, hauls out and smashes the crystal cube with all his Asgardian and Ice Giant might - straight into the nearest rock formation, where it shatters into a million rainbow shards, releasing the bright blue infinity stone within._

_Oh, crap._

IV

“Clint.”

The voice penetrates the fog in his brain with a punch of the familiar.

“How many times have I told you that throwing yourself out of windows would kill you some day?”

He responds automatically, even though it’s been a while since he’s heard that particular question and is not quite sure that he’s hearing it now. 

“Well, it usually works, so.”

The voice harrumphs delicately and yes, it’s definitely her. _Natasha._

“Are you sure it worked this time?”

He’s about to say something like ‘ _well I’m here, aren’t I?’_ but then it strikes him that he has no idea where _here_ actually is. For starters, the light is different. Diffuse, somehow, like on a warm summer’s eve, and reflecting off buildings of burnished gold.

Not to mention that Natasha is standing there, right in the place that should have been his landing zone, although she’s been gone for a couple of years. Gone, as in, _dead,_ her body left behind on the rocks of some alien planet whose name he’s been actively trying to forget ever since.

But here she is, wearing a leather jacket he recognizes as an old, long-lost favourite from SHIELD days. A flash of light that seems to come from nowhere strikes the arrow necklace he’d given her after Budapest and makes the little arrow blink. 

It sure is _her_.

Clint sits up. Looking at what he can see of himself, he’s in a pair of scruffy jeans, one of his purple t-shirts and his grey hoodie - the one Natasha kept stealing so often he’d lost track of it - is on the floor beside him. His arms are covered in bandages, which is probably fair since he'd just tried hurling himself through a closed window (again). Funny enough, nothing hurts anywhere nearly as much as it should, but he’s not quite ready to stand up on his own.

“Okay, I gotta ask,” he says. “Where and when the fuck am I, and why are you here? Assuming you _are_ here?”

“I am,” she says, that deep-throated chuckle he’s always loved hovering just behind the words. “ _When_ is now - with a few useful adjustments - and _here_ is Valhalla.”

“Val-what?”

Natasha crosses the short distance between them. Oddly, her steps make no sound, but when she holds out her hand to help him up, the gesture is familiar, as is the touch of her fingers in his. _Warm. Real._ And she seems very, very happy to see him, despite her earlier, sarcastic tone.

“It’s an inter-dimensional thing, with a touch of Asgard. The place where heroes go after they…okay, maybe you should have stayed sitting down?”

Clint is beginning to get the idea. That window had been awfully high up and even as he was going through, he’d had the awful feeling that his grappling hook might not work so well on glass cladding. Fuck the _Burj Khalifa_ and the horde of architects that thought a glass building in the desert was a good idea _._

“After they die?” he finishes her sentence; somehow saying it breaks a spell.   
  
“Yeah,” she smiles, a little awkwardly. “That. It finally caught up with both of us.”

Well, shit. This was…unexpected, although probably inevitable. 

On the positive side, this might resolve a long-standing question:

“Do they have those angel harps here? Because I always wondered whether you could use them to shoot, like, eight arrows at once.”

Natasha rolls her eyes.

“This is Valhalla, Clint, not a Hallmark card.”

Okay, fine. No harps then. He still has a ton of questions, though - but one immediate priority first.

“Tell me you can get a decent espresso up here? I have a feeling a briefing is gonna take some time.”

As it turns out there’s a place where you can get, if not an espresso, then some kind of Schrödinger’s liquid that pours out as coffee for him, and as mead for the Viking-like types wandering around the place. 

Clint takes a deep sip of his coffee and looks at Natasha over the rim of his cup, which, oddly, doesn’t seem to be emptying. Paradise comes with endless coffee? Had he known that, he might have considered dying earlier.

“So,” he says, after swallowing and briefly closing his eyes in bliss. “Does caffeine still work when you’re dead, or do people just drink coffee for the taste?”

Natasha whacks him on the arm.

“Clint.”

He blinks at her. “Yes?”

“Pay attention.”

“I thought I was? See those Viking dudes over there? They were in New Mexico, where Thor first made landfall. I suppose they’re dead too? Shame.”

Natasha huffs an impatient gust of air out through her nose, which means _breathing_ is still happening in Valhalla, too – so yes, he _is_ paying attention.

“Be serious for a minute. You died, Clint. You…”

He holds up his hand, not quite ready for a lecture.

“Yes, you mentioned. But I don’t feel particularly dead. See?” He wiggles his fingers. “No rigor mortis. Skin feels warm. The only thing that is seriously strange is that you’re here, and frankly, that is a huge bonus. You want me to ask questions and process this shit? I will, promise. Right now, I’m having an espresso with my best friend, whom I haven’t seen in two years. Let’s have a moment.”

She nods, ‘fair enough’. For a while they sit in silence, exchanging the occasional glance and small smile. Perhaps Natasha’s insistence that he take his demise seriously had come from the same place as his own attempts to downplay the idea? Truth probably is, neither of them wants to admit just how _right_ it feels to be together again.

But eventually, the moment he’d begged for has passed and Natasha asks the inevitable question.

"When did you get so goddamn careless?"

"Who says I was careless? That was a really tall building, and ..."

She shakes her head at his denial. 

"I watched the replay, Clint. We can do that up here when someone we..." she pauses for a second before continuing. "When someone we know well arrives in Valhalla. You _threw yourself out of a window_ , on the very slim chance that you could get off a grappling arrow and then go _into_ another window, fifty floors down. Some people would call that dumb; I'd call that reckless self-endangerment."

He stares at his cup, watches it fill up again. Man, that's a handy feature.

"Well..." Trust Natasha to get straight to the point. Maybe he should too? “ _Careless_ is a good way of putting it. I stopped caring. I..."

His throat goes dry - is that a thing that happens to dead people too? He takes a fresh swallow of coffee. Natasha looks at him like she knows he's stalling, and raises The Eyebrow.

Okay then. You only live (or die) once, right? Clint takes a deep breath and takes the plunge.

"I guess what really screwed me up was losing you, on Vormir. After that… Well, now you know.” 

The middle of a confession is an odd time to notice that Natasha has been fingering her necklace, but he does. Seeing the little silver arrow makes the next part easier.

“You see, Tash - _it’s always been you_. And without you...”

He falters, but somehow she doesn't seem fazed. On the contrary. 

Natasha reaches across the table for his hand; he lets her take it and for a moment they sit in silence, fingers entwined. It shouldn’t feel as good as it does, given that they're both dead, but there's no denying that it does. For the first time in a very long time he feels whole, and alive - and somehow he knows she does too. 

“I’m glad you’re here,” she says simply. "I missed you too."

*****

The smile that plays on Clint’s lips is a mixture of relief and happiness, reflecting her own, and for a moment she too is content to just… _feel_. But they have never been ones to linger on sentiment and Natasha is not surprised that he changes the subject almost immediately. 

“All right then,” he says, sitting back and reaching for his coffee, but not letting go of her hand. “Tell me more about ‘here’. Who else is here?”

Natasha nods.

“Vision; Wanda’s brother; a bunch of Wakandans. Stark, being his usual pain in the you-know-what. Nebula’s sister, although I haven’t seen her for a while now. Oh, and…” 

She grips his hand a little tighter to prepare him for the shock.

“Loki.”

“ _That fucking little prick_?? What the…?” 

His indignant sputter is mild, compared to the reaction she’d expected. Perhaps death has mellowed Clint Barton?

“He phases in and out, actually, and we’re trying to figure out whether it’s because he’s only been a hero very occasionally, or because he’s not really dead. Or at least not full time? Oh, speak of the devil…”

The God of Mischief blinks into existence a few metres away from their table, dusts off his green velvet tabard and looks around to check whether anyone has been watching and is ready to pay homage. His eyes fall on Clint and Natasha, their entwined hands, and for the moment he looks both stunned and aggrieved. He stomps his foot like a thwarted child and disappears again.

“See?” Natasha says. “Stark and Vision think that Loki being able to come and go like that suggests that there are links between this plane of existence and other planes. He may well have opened that gate himself somehow - being Loki, probably by breaking something.”

Clint is intrigued.

“Meaning we could go back? Like ghosts or something? I have a list of people I’d just _love_ to haunt. starting with Maria Hill and Nick Fury.” 

Natasha rolls her eyes in amusement at his priorities, but in all fairness, he’s only just arrived; her own first priority on arrival had been a latte and a fresh tac suit. Now, however, the possibilities are so much larger.

“Heimdall thinks Valhalla is a place where the different strands of the multiverse converges. Tony is working on a compass, so yes - we may be able to go back. Wreak a little havoc, maybe do some good.” 

She pulls back her hand and starts to get up. It’s time to tell the others that Clint has arrived; Stark will want to collect on his bet on the window thing.

Clint looks up at her and grins, and Natasha realizes that she hasn’t seen him this carefree and happy since… ever, really. It takes her a few seconds to realize that his expression must be mirrored on her own face; it’s as if an incalculable and ancient weight has suddenly been lifted off both their shoulders.

He pushes back his chair and gets up; this time, it is he who reaches for Natasha’s hand.

“How about a bit of both,” he says. “Provided we do it together.”


End file.
